A Special Bond
by aboywriter
Summary: Nagini is an unnamed snake. She is a vicious and unyielding killer. This story delves into her relationship with Tom from when they first met, exploring that very special bond they shared.


Sidenote: This is short. It is the first chapter in what I anticipate to be many. There are also logical faults in my writing, like how Nagini can hear Voldemort (snakes are deaf), but if Jo writes it to be possible for a snake to understand a parselmouth, who am I to question her ways? Now. On with the story.

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><p>I glide my way slowly over the broken branches and rotten leaves, smelling for food. One flick of my tongue followed by another, followed by another. I feel vibrations. I feel heat. I feel the movement in the air around me. In front of me. Behind me. I have poor eyesight, but that doesn't matter; I am the world's best predator. I can kill anything.<p>

Even though I can feel my skin slice over thorns, I am not bothered, for something as simple as a _thorn_ cannot hurt me. My skin is malleable, flexible. My scales make room for what is under me. My body is entirely adaptable to everything. I do not worry about something as common as _thorns_.

My forest is peaceful. Hauntingly so, sometimes. But I have nothing to fear. Everything fears me.

Movement and warmth catch on my tongue. I don't need good vision to tell that the thing, what ever it is, is 5 meters above me. In a tree. It feels light, as though it shouldn't be enough to satisfy me, but it is something.

My tongue as a guide, I slowly and silently dodge my way to my left, and feel for the tree that the bird is resting on. My tongue is a weapon of brilliance. I can tell that is alone, in a nest, with eggs. Its mate's scent that lingers on the scarred bark of the branch is fresh. Hopefully he will return soon to find his babies and mate gone, while I swallow it whole, taking advantage of its hesitation. I will have to be patient.

Coiling my muscles tightly, I raise my head up the tree. Two feet, three, six, until a quarter of my body is scaling the tree, gripping around the trunk fiercely. My tail trails my head, slowly but surely climbing the tree.

The bird does not know I am here. It cannot feel my presence. Unlike nature's killing machine, me, this stupid creature does not have its own weapon of brilliant. A tiny little brain and hollow bones. How good those bones will prove when they are dissolving away in my stomach.

I do not care to toy with my food today. It is winter and the temperature is making me lethargic. I am irritated, hungry, and the sun is setting. I need to make my way back to my nest, with at least the slightest amount of food in me.

By the time the bird has turned its neck to see me, I strike, as quick as lightning. I constrict its neck in mine. It gives a satisfying _snap_ as I squeeze tighter, asphyxiating it completely, until eventually it stops struggling. What a sorry excuse for a fight.

I eat the bird, and then the eggs. It was not what I set out for, but it is better than nothing. The winter is hard on me, as brilliant and deadly as I am. Other animals sleep through the snow months, and while that might make them easy pickings, the snow and cold stuns my tongue of feeling warmth and scent. When Summer comes, I will feast. No bird, mammal or fish will be able to hide in the white stuff. I will eat as I deserve.

I swallow the last of the eggs and turn around on the branch, and make my way slowly town the thick trunk of the tree. The bark should scratch at my belly, but only makes my grip stronger and my shimmy easier. I flop the end of my tail to the ground and set off on my way to my nest.

But something is wrong. I couldn't taste it from up there. It appeared so suddenly that I missed it. Until now. Something giant, slightly warmer than the evening's air, though not by much, approaches in the distance.

It is something I have only ever smelt once. They do not have a name to me. After all, the last and only one I encountered tried to kill me. If it hadn't been for my vicious attack to its neck, it would have succeeded, too. I enjoyed seeing that one bleed and hallucinate under the effects of my venom.

But this one closes in on me with much speed. Quicker than I can flee. Although I try. Towards the movement, yes. That is my best option. I camouflage myself in the winter's debris, trusting the blue sky to conceal me completely. No need for me to worry about making noise. I am always silent.

It stops. I stop. I question its motives, raising my head slightly above the grass, and smell the air again. My tongue, flicking like bird's wing, assaults the air, taking in every last ounce of information it can.

It has spotted me.

"_You should not try to flee from me so quickly", _something said. Why is it that I could understand the thing? I do not understand anything. Nor do I need to. The only language I speak is brutality. Yet this thing speaks to me in tongue. _"For perhaps I can be of great benefits to you." _

"_I do not seek help from your kind", _I hissed back. My tongue rested slightly, but I could feel it move towards me on its two feet. Such ugly creatures, to make so much noise and cause so much disturbance, when I am elegant and regal.

"_My kind? My friend, you have never met _my _kind." _

"_I am no friend of yours. I know what you are. You want to kill me. You are scared of my superiority, so you seek to destroy me."_ Still it moved closer. As it moved nearer to me, I could hear that his walking was unlike anything I had heard before. The man who tried to kill me all those years ago was heavy, and clumsy. This being, although louder than most, was almost as silent as me. He glided, just as regally.

"_On the contrary. I do not seek to kill you. I seek to befriend you. I seek you to kill for me." _Kill for it. I was required to kill for something other than myself. The audacity. Quickly, I coiled myself around the tree I fled from, and allowed my body to hang snugly to a branch that hung there. I wrapped my body around the branch, and lifted my head towards the direction of my visitor.

"_To kill for you? Are you incapable of doing so yourself?" _

A cold, high pitched laugh vibrated through me. I was amusing it.

"_I have killed in many ways, many times. Your assistance isn't crucial, or, in fact, necessary. But I do require you for other means, friend."_

"_I am not your friend."_

"_No? Well how is it I can talk to you? Communicate with you?" _He stopped walking, and for a moment, I thought he had gone, but then he entered my head. _How is it I can intrude in your mind? _He asked me.

Testing him, I wormed my way off the branch a little more, and allowed him to come to me. Nothing had ever willingly come this close to me. It was always I who intruded on other beings' space. Of course I usually engulfed them afterwards.

Through my misty and unblinking eyes, I saw my guest for the first time.

Animals are ugly to me. They have clumsy limbs and clumsy orifices. I did not need either to survive. The thing that tried to kill me was uglier than any animal I had ever eaten. Too long. Erect. Long, gangly arms and long, gangly legs. No elegance to his statue. I am glad I killed it.

But this thing was different. Far more different than anything I had ever seen.

He resembled myself, and the thing that tried to kill me. He was a hybrid of the two. Neither one nor the other. His face was just as flat as mine, no beak upon his face. His eyes were gleaming, red, and unforgiving. The eyes of a killer.

Yet he was handsome. Beautiful. Royal. He was elegant to the point of looking fragile, but something under the black cloth he wore upon his body suggested to me that this thing had never known fragility in its life. It was strong, unyielding, and the kind of being I yearned so much for.

"_You are beautiful," _he hissed to me. I unwrapped my body slightly from the branch, and danced around. He reached out a hand, I smelt for it, and nuzzled my snout in to his cool palm. Warmer than me. But still cold.

"_I am,"_ I said, unraveling my neck more, sliding my body off the branch and on to his arm. I made my way around his shoulders, down his other arm, his body, until I touched the floor. Slowly. Elegantly. I think he appreciated my beauty. _"I have a superiority I feel you understand. It is unappreciated in this forest."_

"_Friend, the beings who do not appreciate you are not worthy of breathing the same air as you. You chose well to kill."_

This thing, this man, speaks fondly of me. I dance my way around his feet. Over them. They are bare, and the same temperature of his hands. I rub my scent on his outstretched fingers, letting him know that he has won my allegiance.

"_Do you accept my request?" _His cool, clear, high voice whispered. I wound my thick body up his back and over one shoulder, so I could be near his ear when I whispered, _"Do I get to kill?"_

He laughed again, in the same, humourless manour as before. He stroked my head with one thin finger, and answered me.

"_Yes."_

And so I rested my cheek in to his neck, and coiled the rest of my body around his.

"_Then I accept."_

And the next thing, we were spinning from my forest, into blackness. Into nothingness.

We were disappearing.


End file.
